Darn Porch pirates

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

My in laws sent gifts early this year. Mrs. just got an email from the post office saying the package was delivered Monday at 12:37 pm to our mail box. Our lane is 900 ft long and we cannot see the box from the house. But the box sits right in front of 3 neighbor's houses. Our former rural route delivery driver always brought packages back the lane to the porch and up to the porch of the neighbor that shares our lane. For the past six weeks we have had a new delivery person. We go days without mail and then suddenly there is 10 to 15 pieces of mail on a single day.. I recently got a notice from the local court, delivered 32 days after the date on the notice. Our mail was always delivered about 2 pm 6 days a week. It is coming all different hours of the day now. sometimes 10 am and sometimes 6 pm. My Mrs. is really frosted. Down the raod, one person put a secure box out along the road for packages and the whole box was ripped off its fasteners.

[Stan Calow]

The USPS is short of workers all over just like every other business. Our service deteriorating too. I asked my mail carrier one night how things were going and he handed me a job application.

[Ed Aumiller]

A year or so ago, our carrier retired, he was very good...
Our new carrier is even better... she puts packages on our daughters porch for us even though it is inconvenient for her...
UPS is also good...
Fedex is another story...
Amazon depends on the driver..

[Keith Pitman]

We’ve had postal delivery problems too. I can’t help but thinking that the Postal Service problems trace back to the Postmaster General that the previous president appointed.

[Mel Fulks]

We’ve had postal delivery problems too. I can’t help but thinking that the Postal Service problems trace back to the Postmaster General that the previous president appointed.

Anything is possible. Important to understand that Postmaster General is plum job given to a person who helped the guy get elected.
You don’t get that job because you have some great ideas for beautiful stamps that will feature birds , animals , insects, or pretty women.
Or even for a postal breakthrough like delicious stamp glue that tastes better than glazed doughnuts.

[Warren Lake]

91 year old I know has had three letters go missing., They vaporized. Kind of like spontaneous combustion I suppose. Total of four cheques so stuff was not paid then stop payments. Upsetting for an elderly person. Now someone pays all for her online and no issues. Her daughter works for the post office. I heard another story from a friend that one postal worker caught another postal worker delivering and stealing their mail. Long and short union protected the employee. Its an odd world. Mel doughnuts are evil but sure they create business for more than just the sellers.

[Thomas McCurnin]

I'd set up a half dozen trail cameras on that mail box.

[Mel Fulks]

We’ve had postal delivery problems too. I can’t help but thinking that the Postal Service problems trace back to the Postmaster General that the previous president appointed.

pretty sure that guy left his job about same time that Prez left his. That was a long time ago .

[Mel Fulks]

For years US post offices had signs about how many years you would be in prison if they caught you stealing one of there fine pens.
Haven’t seen those in years . Around here there are plenty of pens, but apparently all the chains have been stolen.

[Lee Schierer]

pretty sure that guy left his job about same time that Prez left his. That was a long time ago .

The current postmaster is Louis DeJoy. He took office in May 2020 and is still serving. He is not appointed by the Board of Governors for the Postal Service, not the President. The Board of Governors are the only ones who can remove the Postmaster General unless he quits.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

when I first moved here, the postal rural route carriers were so bad hardly anyone on the road put out a mail box. mail in wrong boxes, drivers not closing the mail boxes, etc. The mail at my office building was sometimes just thrown on the lobby floor instead of put into the mail boxes. The mail was running downhill long before the recent appointee that was blamed for everything. I remember people said that suddenly the blue collection boxes disappeared. Yeah the same ones that had been picked up and put in storage 15 yrs earlier, but it took a change of postmaster general for people to notice and blame.

[Dwayne Watt]

Nope, that same guy is still there. That position is appointed by a board of governors, not the president. President does appoint new board members as their terms expire.

pretty sure that guy left his job about same time that Prez left his. That was a long time ago .

[John K Jordan]

… Our lane is 900 ft long and we cannot see the box from the house. But the box sits right in front of 3 neighbor's houses. …

Our drive is further than that and winds down through the trees.

I installed wireless driveway monitors both outside our security gate and inside. They detect motion and sound an alert inside the house and inside the shop. The one outside the gate is positioned to detect a delivery person walking or a vehicle turning around in the driveway and beeps once at the receivers. The monitor inside the gate beeps several times so I can tell the difference between an alert outside the gate and when family or friend is coming down the drive.

When I’m expecting a delivery and hear a single alert I go out to the gate.

I’ve been using monitors for a bunch of years. I bought them at Northern Tool - relatively inexpensive for the value they provide. I think HD sells the same ones too. I see Amazon carries others, one claims 1/2 mile range. (Might depend on whats in between)

We have never had mail stolen. This is on a dead-end road so maybe that helps. It may help that the mailbox is across the road from a couple of friendly neighbors. It also may help that I have a easily-visible commercial camera mounted at the side of the gate and signs warning of video surveillance.

We have excellent delivery service from USPS, UPS, and FedEx. I made it easy for secure package delivery by installing a big steel lock box behind a tree near the mailbox, on steel supports concreted into the ground. One FedEx guy said he wished more people in rural areas had boxes like that.

JKJ

[Alex Zeller]

The USPS seems to have different policies for different people. Around here if it doesn't fit inside the box you have to pick it up at the local post office. I actually like that because if the UPS or FedEx driver can't be bothered to drive up the driveway it either get's left down at the mailbox (3/4 of a mile from the house) or just leaves it on the truck for a week or two before sending it back to the seller. If you call them up to try and get them to leave it somewhere else they try to get you to go to their store (which is an hour and a half away). I think the real problem is in the past a driver would own a route and learn the people. Now they seem to get moved from route to route never getting the chance to learn the little tricks, like where they can safely leave a package.

[Mel Fulks]

The USPS seems to have different policies for different people. Around here if it doesn't fit inside the box you have to pick it up at the local post office. I actually like that because if the UPS or FedEx driver can't be bothered to drive up the driveway it either get's left down at the mailbox (3/4 of a mile from the house) or just leaves it on the truck for a week or two before sending it back to the seller. If you call them up to try and get them to leave it somewhere else they try to get you to go to their store (which is an hour and a half away). I think the real problem is in the past a driver would own a route and learn the people. Now they seem to get moved from route to route never getting the chance to learn the little tricks, like where they can safely leave a package.

Its up to the people who order the stuff to be home or make arrangements. Sometimes when I’m driving I will see a big steel
box in front of a house . They are usually out in the open , bolted down to concrete , painted with a bright color and marked as the place
for packages. And my guess is most of those people have guns.